Posted
by
samzenpuson Monday June 03, 2013 @11:48AM
from the welcome-to-the-machine dept.

schwit1 writes in with news about a ruling on the legality of the police collecting your DNA after an arrest. "A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday said police can routinely take DNA from people they arrest, equating a DNA cheek swab to other common jailhouse procedures like fingerprinting. 'Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's five-justice majority. But the four dissenting justices said that the court was allowing a major change in police powers. 'Make no mistake about it: because of today's decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national database if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,' conservative Justice Antonin Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom. Details of ruling available here.

Interesting breakdown. Scalia joined 3 of the 4 liberals (Ginsberg, Sotomayer, and Kagan. Breyer broke with the liberals and voted in favor of the opinion. It also means a rare moment where Thomas didn't vote in lockstep with Scalia.

Interesting breakdown. Scalia joined 3 of the 4 liberals (Ginsberg, Sotomayer, and Kagan. Breyer broke with the liberals and voted in favor of the opinion. It also means a rare moment where Thomas didn't vote in lockstep with Scalia.

Yes it is. "Being detained" is something they made up to get around your rights*. If you are not free to go, you are under arrest.

Just look at the definition. In a non legal sense, arrest means "1. To stop" That's exactly what detain(1. To keep from proceeding) means. Same thing.

In a legal sense, arrest means "2. To seize and hold under the authority of law." If a police officer has told you that you are not free to go, then he has siezed you under the authority of law.

Detention is arrest. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar who is trying to trick you out of your rights. That includes members of the SCOTUS.

*They do this trick a lot. You have legal rights granted under civil and criminal law... but they made up "administrative" law where you have no such protections. There are legal rights granted to civilians and to soldiers... but they made up "enemy combatants" who have no such protections. It's the oldest trick in the book, don't fall for it.

The *dictionary* definitions of the terms (legal or otherwise) are totally irrelevant.

Whoever told you that is one of the liars to whom I referred. These are the games lawyers play to screw the rest of us. Just use a different name for the same thing and you don't have to apply all the rights we've managed to protect.

For example, when arrested you get to be advised of your right to a lawyer, your right not to incriminate yourself, etc. If a detention isn't an arrest, you don't get mirandized. And if yo

I don't know why you got informative because whomever gave you that obviously hadn't been to the USA, where we have so many bullshit laws on the books that they CAN arrest anybody pretty much for shits and giggles.

There is one that is basically "Defying authority" (sorry if i don't know the exact term for a bullshit law) where the cop gets to decide what that is and we have seen in the past simply asking why you are being detained can be enough to get that bullshit thrown at you, there is the always popula

Laws vary across jurisdictions, but detention is usually a safety first kind of thing designed to be temporary while the officers defuse a situation and assess whether there is cause to charge you with something or if you might reasonably be a suspect in whatever they detained you for in the first place, or possibly even to take your statement if you were a witness.

Being detained does not (generally) allow the officer to transport you against your will, doesn't go on your record, doesn't require you to be charged with anything and doesn't last very long (exact amount of time depends on jurisdiction).

Now, if an officer is detaining you and you leave without him telling you that you are free to go, then they can *easily* arrest you for disobeying a lawful order (or similar statute, again depending on jurisdiction) so don't be stupid if you are being detained, and make sure that you are told that you are free to go before making any move to leave.

It also means a rare moment where Thomas didn't vote in lockstep with Scalia.

For the October 2010 to June 2011 term the Justices most often agreeing in whole or part were Roberts and Alito at 96%. In second place were Sotomayor and Kagan at 94%. In third and fourth place were Scalia and Roberts, and Kennedy and Roberts at 90%. In fifth and sixth place were Roberts and Thomas, and Thomas and Alito at 89%. In seventh place was Kennedy and Alito at 88%. In eighth and ninth places were Breyer and Sotomayor, and Breyer and Kagan at 87%. In tenth, eleventh and twelfth places were Scalia and Thomas, Scalia and Alito, and Kennedy and Thomas.

So, if voting in lockstep like Thomas and Scalia is bad at 86%, what is it when Sotomayor and Kagan vote together 94% of the time? Is that also lockstep?

It also means a rare moment where Thomas didn't vote in lockstep with Scalia.

For the October 2010 to June 2011 term the Justices most often agreeing in whole or part were Roberts and Alito at 96%. In second place were Sotomayor and Kagan at 94%. In third and fourth place were Scalia and Roberts, and Kennedy and Roberts at 90%. In fifth and sixth place were Roberts and Thomas, and Thomas and Alito at 89%. In seventh place was Kennedy and Alito at 88%. In eighth and ninth places were Breyer and Sotomayor, and Breyer and Kagan at 87%. In tenth, eleventh and twelfth places were Scalia and Thomas, Scalia and Alito, and Kennedy and Thomas.

So, if voting in lockstep like Thomas and Scalia is bad at 86%, what is it when Sotomayor and Kagan vote together 94% of the time? Is that also lockstep?

~Loyal

Since you quote 2nd place instead of first, your attempt to turn this into a left/right thing is obvious. Your numbers may be the case for the current term. Thomas and Scalia have way more years of history of lockstep. The fact that Thomas never says anything is what adds to this "lockstep" idea. Here is some history from wikipedia:

Voting alignment

On average, from 1994 to 2004, Scalia and Thomas had an 86.7% voting alignment, the highest on the Court, followed by Ginsburg and Souter (85.6%).[100] Scalia and Thomas's agreement rate peaked in 1996, at 97.7%.[100] By 2004, however, other pairs of justices were observed to be more closely aligned than Scalia and Thomas.[101]

The conventional wisdom that Thomas's votes follow Antonin Scalia's is reflected by Linda Greenhouse's observation that Thomas voted with Scalia 91 percent of the time during October Term 2006, and with Justice John Paul Stevens the least, 36% of the time.[102] Jan Crawford Greenburg asserts that to some extent, this is true in the other direction as well, that Scalia often joins Thomas instead of Thomas joining Scalia.[103] Statistics compiled annually by Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog demonstrate that Greenhouse's count is methodology-specific, counting non-unanimous cases where Scalia and Thomas voted for the same litigant, regardless of whether they got there by the same reasoning.[104] Goldstein's statistics show that the two agreed in full only 74% of the time, and that the frequency of agreement between Scalia and Thomas is not as outstanding as is often implied by pieces aimed at lay audiences. For example, in that same term, Souter and Ginsburg voted together 81% of the time by the method of counting that yields a 74% agreement between Thomas and Scalia. By the metric that produces the 91% Scalia/Thomas figure, Ginsburg and Breyer agreed 90% of the time. Roberts and Alito agreed 94% of the time.[105]

Legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg wrote in her book on the Supreme Court that Thomas's forceful views moved "moderates like [Sandra Day O'Connor] further to the left",[106] but frequently attracted votes from Rehnquist and Scalia.[107] Mark Tushnet and Jeffrey Toobin both observe that Rehnquist rarely assigned important majority opinions to Thomas, because the latter's views made it difficult for him to persuade a majority of justices to join him.[108]

"Interesting breakdown. Scalia joined 3 of the 4 liberals (Ginsberg, Sotomayer, and Kagan. Breyer broke with the liberals and voted in favor of the opinion. It also means a rare moment where Thomas didn't vote in lockstep with Scalia."

What amazes me is that the majority only considered whether the physical search is "intrusive", but not whether the results (being in a database) would be intrusive. As such, they left out at least half of the real 4th Amendment issue, which is great opportunity for this to be re-visited later.

If there were ever a SCOTUS decision that deserved to be reversed, this is definitely one of them.

There is no doubt that the Government has "an interest" in collecting the DNA for identification. At the same time, the potential for abuse is ENORMOUS. Much higher than with just about anything else. And not just abuse, but mistakes of epic proportions.

This was a BAD DECISION. Period. One of the giant elephants in the room of the Supreme Court's recent history of bad decisions.

It *IS* the Court's job to block actions by the Executive that are unconstitutional. This is a 4th Amendment issue.

It is very clear -- and the Court has itself ruled in the past -- that it is not just the search itself that must be considered in deciding whether it is intrusive. It also must consider the consequences of that search.

Thus, searching through your papers willy-nilly, while it may not be physically intrusive in many or even most cases, is a 4th Amendment violation: "The right of the people

This seems to me to be a result of the society as a whole putting way too much emphasis on the Constitution, and believing that it necessarily must equal all the basic rights.

The protection for privacy in the Constitution is notably rather weak, even more so when compared to many other modern democracies. I cannot say that this is a fault in the Constitution per se: The issues today simply are not the same as those in 1787.

The reasonable way forward would be to recognize that, while the drafters of the Cons

Why the surprise? Scalia is a textualist/originalist. If a particular method of search or seizure would have been viewed as unreasonable in 1791, then that is exactly what the Fourth Amendment prohibits.

Scalia wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Jones holding that warrentless attachement of a GPS to track a suspect's car was a trespass, and that the information collected was an unreasonable search.

Scalia wrote the majority opinion in Florida v. Jardines holding that police can't enter the curtilage (closely surrounding area) of a home with the intent to collect evidence (in this case, via a drug sniffing dog). Scalia called this an unreasonable search.

The point is police can speak to a doctor about my medical HISTORY, not my medical FUTURE.They cannot read my medical records, nor should they able to sequence my genome and find potential for FUTURE MEDICAL, or if we're looking into future here, risk of FUTURE CRIME (ie propensity for crime, certain damaged genes/code, high likelihood of quantifiable low intelligence.).

The point is you can tell a lot of about a person which is "none of your damn business" so to apeak from their genome, which you cannot tell from a finger print of iris scan.

Fingerprints and irises are non-invasive and reasonably reliable compared to Genome testing for identification of perps. When it comes to privacy I prefer to err on the side of caution and 4 well informed SCOTUS judges.

Unless something's changed in the past year, forensics does not retain medically-sensitive genetic information. They pick up on random, fast-changing mutations called SNPs which are specifically chosen so that they don't reveal medical information. There was a kerfuffle when it was discovered that one of them might be linked to schizophrenia. The data retention policies are stupidly thuggish, like every other component of US law enforcement, but your medical insurance is not in danger.

A great number of genetically-linked diseases are expected to be measurable in SNP's. Many haven't yet been identified. It's nearly a given that some of the currently collected DNA SNP's will be linked to diseases in the future.

BTW, this argument about fingerprinting is being made in reverse on this thread - the DNA situation highlights why the fingerprints decision was wrong, however long ago that was made. Let's try to be logically consistent here.

This argument is of course, only in theory. In reality, the masters will do whatever they want to their slaves.

For identification purposes law enforcement labs only analyze at a dozen or so short segments of the DNA. That's why they can do the test so quickly. For example it was technically possible that Bin Laden could have been positively id'd within hours of his capture. Short tandem repeats give very little data, and not enough to characterizes anyone's medical condition. As the ruling says, "Those loci came from noncoding DNA parts that do not reveal an arrestee’s genetic traits and are unlikely to re

The difference is, a finger print does not contain medically private data.

Neither does CODIS, which is a loci of STRs [wikipedia.org] that are not medically relevant. It might be different if the police were actually sequencing the entire genome, but they are specifically looking for irrelevant areas because those necessary have the most variance between people and hence the most specificity.

To put it another way, heritable traits are much less likely to be different between potential matches and so are a bad choice for genetic fingerprinting.

They aren't putting your entire genome into the database. They only collect 13 specific markers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODIS). The possibility that one of these markers is tied to a genetic disease is possible as referenced in Wikipedia. What you can determine from the DNA doesn't appear to be any greater than the information available in a photograph. DNA reveals non visible information, but a lot more information can be gleaned from a photograph.

The law on genetic discrimination by companies is extremely aggressive in the US. You can read all about it here [wikipedia.org]. Opposing it or circumventing it would be political suicide, akin to racial or sex discrimination. You forget that the kind of crap actually pulled by the police and intelligence sectors in the US remains in the iffy grey zone; the information this article is talking about isn't even (very) medically sensitive, just a sorta-unique-ish identifier, like fingerprints. Medical information is not being exchanged.

The world is not actually quite as horrible as you're gloomily projecting.

The world is not actually quite as horrible as you're gloomily projecting.

The world steadily gets more horrible, and things intended for one thing invariably go through some scope creep.

I have very little faith that in even 5-10 years they couldn't find some way to get around these laws, they always do. If corporate profits are seen to be suffering, many lawmakers will give them anything they want, and won't give us a second thought.

I don't need to worry what happens to information they don't collect. But as soon as they do start collecting it, that's when stuff starts to go awry.

You may trust the government to not eventually be assholes and douchebags, but I don't.

If you can be stopped for a 'border check' within 100 miles or so of the border, I wouldn't exactly keep counting on them not to do whatever they please. Once the courts validate the ridiculous positions government puts forth, there's no going back.

But it does get us one step closer. It's one more prerequisite that no longer stands in the way. It's one less hurdle for anyone who wants to abuse a nationwise genetic database - such as the insurance companies, eugenists and the police.

Today it's swaps, tomorrow it's full genetic sequencing to get a better match and the day after that it's your genetic tendency towards addiction being used as a reasonable cause to search your house whenever the police wish. Which i

So, when the police come knocking on your door to take you to jail for a rape that you didn't commit, 4 states away, because your markers were "close enough" or they fucked up the evidence/results (which happens all the goddamn time), you're going to be okay with that? How about when they decide to start selling your information off to private companies for whatever use they deem fitting.

The difference is that a finger print DOES not point the cops in the direction of a relative the way DNA could.

This is not a hypothetical. A quick search for "rapist found dna son" comes up with several different cases were rapists were identified when the DNA of a close relative/son was entered into the database. I am all for rapists and violent criminals being taken off the streets but feel torn about how it is being done. The SCOTUS is also clearly torn considering the Republican/Democratic split in the

Digging through the Supreme Court Database [wustl.edu], this happened exactly once before (Scalia, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Ginsberg all agreeing in dissent). It happened in Williams v. Illinois [scotusblog.com], which was interestingly also a DNA testing case. The question at the time was "Whether a state rule of evidence allowing an expert witness to testify about the results of DNA testing performed by non-testifying analysts, where the defendant has no opportunity to confront the actual analysts, violates the Confrontation Clause." The majority held that it did not violate the confrontation clause, with these four justices in dissent.

Actually Liberals support personal freedom for people they agree with. They are fully content to step on the rights of the people they disagree with as, unfortunately many from the right do as well. Actually there is a big difference in many cases between a Liberal and a Democrat. Nancy Pelosi is a Democrat whereas Ralph Nader as one example, is a Liberal. I respect Ralph Nader even though I reject many of his viewpoints because he is an honest and driven individual. I loathe Nancy Pelosi as she is a d

Can they then sell these public records to a middle man who can extract the relative information and sell it to insurance companies? Because I may have a business proposition for some biology undergrads.

There is a big difference between a DNA sample that could be used to match a crime scene and sequenced DNA . Just a hunch but I doubt the local police would be interested in the headache involved of storing HIPAA data.

Why are children even being asked?They are not capable of consent for sex, so this should be a decision their parents make. I would think children should technically be a special kind of property like livestock. They can make no legal decisions or consent, but they are protected from abuse by the law.

Scalia is mostly just a conservative hack these days, but sometimes he remembers that he used to have actual principles. Good for him – on this issue, he's absolutely right on the merits.

The majority decision is terrible because it means that if the authorities want your DNA for whatever reason, all they have to do is come up with some excuse to arrest you. They don't have to make the arrest stick, just get you into the system.

Well, by "conservative hack", JDG1980 means that Scalia decides issues based upon the agreed-upon principles and rules laid out in the Constitution rather than fabricating new legislation willy nilly to meet the demands of progressivism like Sotamayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan.

Yeah, right. Our government is so incompetent that even if your DNA is archived, it's going to sit in a database for 40 years untouched because none of the different records departments know how to talk to each other. That's the one good thing about data silos.

...let's not forget that it is deep blue Maryland and Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley, widely considered to be eyeing a run at the Democratic nomination for POTUS in 2016, who took this to the Supreme Court over their own MD Court of Appeals, and who is the one shitting all over the 4th Amendment here. The MD DNA Database [maryland.gov] has been one of O'Malley's pet projects for years, and he's advocated its expansion and use for this type of thing since he was Mayor of Baltimore.

I have a different sort of idea about that:1. Almost all people with no power, don't want a police state, dictatorship, etc because they know it will oppress them.

2. Almost all people with power would rather like a police state or dictatorship, because that allows them to keep their power.

3. Those people without power who have chosen to identify with or support a subgroup of those people with power have to square their opposition to police states with their decision to support their chosen subgroup. That leads to the "My party isn't oppressing me, the other party is oppressing me!" thinking from self-identified partisans.

The real blindness is this, which came out in a conversation between myself (borderline socialist), a moderately liberal friend, and a libertarian friend: Which person in your life is most likely to be oppressing you in some way? Answer: Your boss.

To be fair, in my observation, very few on the right believe such either. What disturbs me most is that these polarized views are from people who are convinced they know what their "opponents" think but don't actually think about what their own side's messages/actions are. I'm quite firmly in the middle with a slight left and libertarian (small L) political view. I truly find it disturbing.

Sorry but conflating Marxism to American liberalism is complete baloney.

The roots of liberalism are (from the Wikipedia article on the same topic) in the Enlightenment.

"Liberalism first became a distinct political movement during the Age of Enlightenment, when it became popular among philosophers and economists in the Western world. Liberalism rejected the notions, common at the time, of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The 17th century philosopher John Locke is often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition. Locke argued that each man has a natural right to life, liberty and property and according to the social contract, governments must not violate these rights. Liberals opposed traditional conservatism and sought to replace absolutism in government with democracy and/or republicanism and the rule of law.

The revolutionaries of the American Revolution, segments of the French Revolution, and other liberal revolutionaries from that time used liberal philosophy to justify the armed overthrow of what they saw as tyrannical rule. The nineteenth century saw liberal governments established in nations across Europe, Spanish America, and North America. In this period, the dominant ideological opponent of liberalism was classical conservatism.

Later 20th century liberalism evolved into social liberalism where social justice and a mixed economy are needed to limit the gap between the rich and the poor. The trust busting of the early 20th century and the formation of labor unions are typical modern liberal activities.

Marxism is based on the idea of complete collectivism, no private ownership of capital, and no right of property, which are very different from any form of liberalism.

Unfortunately this is a bi-partisan issue. Anytime you see Republicans and Democrats agree on something it's almost always going to be a big fucking for the American people. Unlike issues such as abortion and gay marriage where they divide the public in order to control us, this issue is one they unite on for the same reason, control of the masses. It's so obvious that I'm amazed people haven't twigged to it yet. Politicians are either Republican or Democrat while people are generally either Liberal or

Because Liberals, like O'Malley, believe in a police state. It is much easier to oppress your population and monitor them if you have their fingerprints and DNA on file.

Did you accidentally migrate from the Yahoo comment boards or something? Sheesh, what insight?

Very few Americans want anything like a police state. It's likewise very easy for a police state to form without access to any DNA records. Interestingly enough, it is probably easier, unless you seriously suggest that law enforcement will just say "Yup, a perfect DNA match" to every case, even if the whole country watched a woman kill someone on Television, and the "perfect match" is a black man from across the country with an ironclad alabi.

In an efficient Police state, no evidence is needed, and even better, all suspects will be killed trying to escape. DNA swabs would be a real nuisance to a police state, as they would eventually be a tool used aganst the state.

All it would take is one doctor willing to take on the risk, send the contradictory DNA proof of malfeasance zipping across the internet and its Game On!

You are wrong. Not only did Scalia vote against this, he authored a scathing dissent of the decision -- while Bryer, one of the Court's liberals, voted for it along with the Court's conservative Justices. And it's absolutely beyond question that Martin O'Malley, a diehard liberal who supports issues such as granting in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants and denying law-abiding Marylanders the right to carry concealed firearms (another MD case soon bound for the Supreme Court), has advanced and expanded this database as part of his agenda for over a decade.

The problem here isn't so much with the collection of DNA, but the retention. That seems to be a common theme here at the start of the 21st century - data collected for one purpose is then reused for other purposes.

I think it is reasonable for the police to check if someone they've arrested is a convicted felon. But once they've looked you up in their database of convicts, the collected data should be destroyed, be it DNA, fingerprints or even a mugshot. If you are subsequently convicted, they can go and re-collect the data for the purposes of making a permanent entry into the database of convicts.

Not really. It's perfectly reasonable for them to match your prints against unknown prints found at other crime scenes. I suppose I could see waiting until you're 'convicted' before checking you against unsolved crimes, but realistically I'm pretty sure it's done upon arrest and collection of the prints (and now DNA).

I disagree with you on almost every point (except for your statement of the common theme).

The bar for becoming a convicted felon has been rapidly lowering over the years. The more police powers we grant, the less Free we become. This decision has just provided an incentive for our lawmakers to make many more of us convicted felons for ever increasingly flimsy "offenses."

The problem here isn't so much with the collection of DNA, but the retention.

Agreed, but note how that isn't addressed by the court, the press or the laws. As noted by posters above, even fingerprints are not usually deleted even if charges are dropped because a school bus full on nuns says "we saw the whole thing and he didn't do it". The best approach would be not only to delete the info for anyone who has charges dropped or is acquitted, but to change who analyzes the DNA. Because there have been cases of incompetent or corrupt police crime labs ("we know he's guilty so just say it matches"), the Innocence Project has suggested that DNA matching be done by N independent and accredited labs, with which lab a sample is sent to chosen at random. The samples should also be submitted and tracked in such a way that it doesn't indicate who or where the sample is from. Lastly, the labs should undergo random checks by having already known samples sent to them in exactly the same way as "real" samples are.

FWIW, california has been doing this for years. [politico.com]. If you are arrested (for anything-- political protest, for example), they will collect your DNA. This information remain in the state database, whether you are convicted or not-- even if you are not even charged. I'm trying to figure out if there's a consistent procedure to get your DNA removed if you're wrongly arrested, but can't find anything from a quick google. I only see a discussion of how it should work (A judge gets to decide) not how it's worked in practice.

WOW, amazing. Just checked the site. Just....amazing.
Since 2004, about 2 million probes taken.
Based on DNA test, about 28000 were convicted.
Translated, about 1% positive hit.
Money collected for this purpose: 280 million dollars.
No comment....

I disagree with the likening of DNA to having a mug shot taken or a fingerprint.. Simply because DNA can be used for purposes well beyond what you can use for a mug shot or a fingerprint.. Consider for a moment this currently fictional example...
We have a nationalized health care system. Using the same DNA collected we tax an individual based on the likeliness of that individual to contract a certain condition (e.g. diabetes)..
-or-
We use that same DNA to establish life insurance rates along the same logic..
The problem here is it allows a very large amount of information to be garnered about a persons potential medical conditions without their consent.

This is only potentially bad because of the way how people have now completely misunderstood the purpose of DNA fingerprinting.

DNA Fingerprinting was originally conceived to exclude suspects and was never intended to prove that a suspect was present.(let that sink in for a bit)

(a bit longer)

This is why DNA fingerprinting is usually combined with probabilities with regard to how many other people share the similar DNA fingerprint match.A DNA fingerprint match should not be considered proof of anyone's guilt. It only means that the suspect cannot be excluded.

However, in America, it seems that DNA fingerprint match is seen as proof of guilt instead of how it should be used where a fingerprint mismatch is proof of innocence. Far too often, I have heard of cases where the prosecution excludes DNA fingerprint evidence because it doesn't show a match... which is an abuse and misrepresentation of the technology.

*sigh*

(I'm sure that many people will read what I had written and still completely fail to understand the difference)

I'm really amused by all the ideological civil libertarians who are shocked (SHOCKED I tell you!) at finding common cause with Scalia on this issue. The general assumption seems to be that Scalia "is finally right for once." Here's an alternative explanation: Scalia hasn't changed at all. It's the ideologically motivated civil libertarians who are off their rockers here.

If you'll tie your jerking knee down for a minute and whip up a Top 20 list of the most pernicious and chilling abuses of government authority, I suspect you'll have a hard time finding a spot for this line item. The risk/benefit equation on this is different. Managing this data in an appropriate and accountable fashion is officially Not Rocket Science. You may not trust the government to behave in a reasonable and appropriate manner, but there's all kinds of stuff you accept silently right now which is already egregious. Letting that stuff slide (Guantanomo, CIA-run drone strikes against civilian targets, National Security Letters, good old fashioned "driving while black", take your pick) while getting your panties in a bunch over soemthing with tangible benefits to a civil society is not much more than masturbatory paranoia.

Or maybe I should put it this way: When extremists of different factions agree, it doesn't make them less extreme.

To expand on that, your mug shot and finger prints can't really be used to deny you medical coverage, increase your insurance premiums, or give much insight into your medical history. Your DNA obviously can. With the cost of sequencing going down, it won't be much longer before law enforcement agencies start sequencing your genome rather than just doing the DNA profiling they do now (which wouldn't be able to, say, predict if you were going to develop Huntington's disease or were prone to cancer, while fu

They can't solve a case but have DNA and a vague description, they will simply "arrest" anyone and everyone who is a close match to the description on trumped up charges that will be dropped after they get their DNA.

They already have license to run said 'dragnet' with your fingerprints. I'm as liberal as they come...and I really don't see the issue here. Now, like fingerprints, once charges are dropped, all such collected evidence should be destroyed.

Basic point, treat it like the other identifiable information they already collect on you. Is this really that hard?

Now, like fingerprints, once charges are dropped, all such collected evidence should be destroyed.

That is NOT what happens with fingerprints. They are kept as permanent records. In some states, you may petition the court to have them expunged after an acquittal, but very few people do that, and it certainly isn't the default.

My experience is otherwise (NY 20 years ago). They notified me to come pick up my original fingerprint cards after charges were dropped.

Perhaps that's changed but to my knowledge they are expunged.

It's still something we're already doing with existing data so DNA, while a more detailed medium, is still personal data being collected about you. It's no different and shouldn't be treated any differently than fingerprints.

It's still something we're already doing with existing data so DNA, while a more detailed medium, is still personal data being collected about you. It's no different and shouldn't be treated any differently than fingerprints.

I disagree. The decision says it is "identification, like fingerprints." Why is additional identification required when fingerprints are adequate?

Because most companies do not subscribe to that level of detailed checking due to the cost involved.In fact, unless you are applying for a very sensitive job for a Government Contract or something, no private employer checks court records.

Its just too expensive and error prone. How many Will Smiths do you think there are in the worldwith a DOB that matches the actor? How many courthouses are there to check?

Its a site trying to sell a service, but I could have just as easily linked to the N [fas.org]

Charges rarely get "dropped". Cases simply don't get pressed. Felony arrests can be prosecuted up to five years later in many places (WA, for one), once sufficient evidence is obtained to make a case. The constitutional prohibition against being placed in double jeapardy means prosecutors only get one kick at the can, unless the same evidence can be repackged under a different charge.

In 2010, when my ex had custody, my son was hungry. As she hardly ever fed our kids, she let me take him to dinner, and wrote a permission slip (as I did not have visitation rights that day, and insisted on one). Well, she let the poor kid out, in February, with one shoe having the sole completely flop off. I told him, either before or after dinner, I'd get him new shows. He chose after dinner. Well, after dinner, he wanted to go home to mom, and I feared she'd have police waiting to illustrate the "poor footwear" that "I" had on him. So, I took him to Payless for those shoes first.

My son has issues. He suffers from Conduct Disorder (Oppositional Defiant Disorder in his younger days, that psychologists and psychiatrists have not been able to stem). In order for him to not run into traffic, I had to carry him into the store, all the while him screaming "He's choking me! He's killing me! Help, he's kidnapping me!" I handed a worker one shoe, asked, for a matching pair, got them paid, and took him home to his mother. Unbeknownst to me, on the way, he brusied himself with his seatbelt buckle.

He alleged I struck him, she called police, they interviewed store staff ("He was choking and trying to kill the child he was kidnapping"), and there was plenty of probable cause to arrest me for felony assault of a minor. I spent four days in jail before being able to post bail. Getting to one's own money behind bars is surprisingly difficult: banks won't release it to attorneys without a notarized power of attorney, and while your lawyer can visit you in lockup, a notary might be made to wait weeks. Lawyers are generally not permitted for front bail monies, because the offer can be used as a incentive to force an attorney-client relationship under duress.

Well, the case against me fell apart: he refused to testify, and his mental illness came to light.

Were the charges dropped?

No.

I got custody of my kids 18 months later, but to remove the uncertainty of a possible felony prosecution over the next 3-1/2 years, I had to get the original charges disposed. Despite not prosecuting me, the DA refused to drop the charges unless I pled to "something". I chose disorderly conduct (as someone might have thought I was actually kidnapping my son, and assaulted me: in WA, acting in a manner that might invite assault is disorderly conduct), and paid a $1200 fine. The original charges were disposed.

All this is public information. I could not hire a nanny for my son through nannies4hire.com because of my arrest record. But, and this addresses the AC: I had no trouble getting a new job some years later. Decent employers research things like this.

They can't solve a case but have DNA and a vague description, they will simply "arrest" anyone and everyone who is a close match to the description on trumped up charges that will be dropped after they get their DNA.

Actually, the opinion [supremecourt.gov] requires the arrest to be for a serious offense. So littering or seatbelt violations are not going to cut it.

For comparison, the Maryland law at issue here essentially limits the DNA testing to arrests for crimes of violence: murder, rape, robbery, assault. These are not victimless crimes and so are much harder to trump up -- you need to find putative victims in order to be credible.